The Exploding Man
by Helvetica Black
Summary: They all watched him carefully, warily. The glue that held him together was gone, washed away by the cold and unforgiving seawater. He was a walking time bomb now — it was only a matter of time before he exploded and fell apart.
1. A Prelude To Disaster

**ONE**

**"A Prelude To Disaster"**

* * *

The quiet and shy girl.

It's a terrible cliché, isn't it? The one you eventually realize is The One after having your heart pulverized by an assortment of heartless girls. And if they were in a movie, he would have a long string of crushes, experience a relationship with a mean girl who breaks his heart, have a girlfriend who is too beautiful outside to be anything decent inside, before he realizes that the quiet, shy girl is The One for him. But they weren't characters in some movie. He realized she was it before he'd even liked any heartless girls, let alone had his heart pulverized by one (not that there was even a remote possibility of that happening; his ability to read minds renders him quite immune to false charms). And in his case The One happened to be very much human. He was a vampire and her blood was the most tempting he had ever encountered, so that pretty much blows the cliché out of the water.

A few months after his family moved into the house in Forks that was so much nicer and a lot bigger than hers, she was the center of all that he did. They were both young, him for much longer.

It was a good start. And the middle was good too. But the ending? Well, the ending left a lot to be desired. He would have written it differently, if he'd had a say in the matter. Every good story deserves a happy ending – it's the basic rule of storytelling.

The quiet, shy girl definitely shouldn't die.

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**A/N:I've got a loooooong author's note for this. At first I wanted to put it here, but I was in danger of pissing you guys off because it's about half as long as this first chapter. I wouldn't want to see that in a fic I'm reading, so yeah. Just check out my FF page if you want to see my crazy ravings about suicide and death and the FBI.**


	2. Dying Wish

**TWO**

**"Dying Wish"**

* * *

He didn't think about much, what with hearing others' thoughts day in and day out. (There was only so much room in his mind for thoughts.) And when he did think, he only thought of four things: his family, his miserable existence, death, and _her_. But mostly he thought of her.

It had been months since her death, and still the image of her face plagued him. He could not forget. He wished he could. For his family. For the ones who cared for him. But he cannot, and that was that. The thoughts of missed opportunities, of lost chances, were something of a nightmare to him. They made him sob, they made him scream. Because more than what he _had_ done to her, he regretted what he _hadn't_. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, a whole world of love and riches he wanted to lay at her feet. So much he wanted to say and do, so much that could have been. So much.

_Too_ much.

The regret made him cold. It seeped through his fingers and toes, chilled his bones and the muscles of his arms and legs, crept to his insides and reached the pit of his stomach, where it settled, sank, festered like a rot about to happen but just _cannot_. He wished he could sleep. He wished for oblivion. He wished he could turn back time. And most of all, he wished he hadn't been so stupid.

He wished for a lot of things.

He went through the motions of life as she had begged him to in the note she left before she jumped to her death. He clothed himself, fed himself, talked to his family as much as he could through his overwhelming grief. He loathed every splitsecond he'd spent alive with her gone. Why, _why_ did she have to do this to him? Why had she begged him to live on without her? Did she not know that it was impossible, that every moment he lived on, it killed him?

But he did as she asked anyway, knowing that he very well deserved the pain he felt every single moment he spent alive. There were many things he could have done for her but hadn't, and now there was just this: living on. At least for a little while longer. It was the one thing he can still do for her, the one thing she asked of him. Every hour killed him, but that was inconsequential. He'd die a million times for her if it would bring her back.

He knew it wouldn't. But love was stupid, so he still _hoped_. Hoped that she would be reincarnated one day, hoped that somewhere over the clouds of Heaven (he hoped it was where she went, the alternative was unfathomable), she was watching him, seeing how he dedicated himself to her dying wish. The other possibility — that she was nowhere now and gone forever — was something he didn't want to think about. She had to be _somewhere_. There had to be some way he can be reunited with her. There _had_ to be.

He looked at the cell phone in his hand. The screen glowed pale blue in the dimness of his room. He glanced at the date and time, and he let out a shuddering sigh.

It was time.

His fingers were tight around the edges of a manila envelope. He could just about smell the paper and ink inside it. And something else — a scent he disliked but had not the energy to be mad about. The envelope had been in his closet for months now, since it arrived by mail two weeks after her death. On the envelope, it said to open it ten months after receiving it, and it took every inch of his self-control to keep himself from ripping it open right then and there. But he managed to restrain himself. It was what she wanted, so he waited. He would have done anything for her. He loved her so much, and he would have given her the world, but now it was too late.

Not that there was anything new with that. He was always too late.

He slowly tore the envelope open, and took a sharp intake of breath as its contents dropped on his lap. Letters, _so many letters_. The thoughts he'd always wanted to hear from her, the very last of them, sat on his lap. And a dreamcatcher that smelled faintly of wolf. He gritted his teeth against the tide of emotions that threatened to wash him away. A _dreamcatcher_, of all things. Did she know that his life was going to be a waking nightmare with her gone? And how could she still have cared? He broke her heart and shattered it to pieces. How much of her heart was left to care?

He took the first letter and unfolded it, steeling his dead heart.

* * *

**_Dear Edward..._**

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**A/N: Reviews are love!**


	3. A Fortnight, And No Longer

**THREE**

**"A Fortnight, And No Longer"**

* * *

I miss Bella. I miss her more than I can say. It isn't something that can be put into words: it's too big. There is a gaping hole in my life and it is all I can do to not get sucked into it and disappear forever.

The idea of life without Bella was unthinkable. My mind couldn't accept it. The thought of going to school every day. Alone. Evenings and weekends. Alone. My whole life stretching out in front of me – without her. It was unacceptable.

For the first couple of days I couldn't even get out of my room. Esmé was frantic, begging me to talk about it. Pleading with me to leave the room and get on with my life. I couldn't even hear her. I became a master at tuning everything and everyone out of my mind: Carlisle, Esmé, Alice, Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper, school, feeding, and life. I tuned out everything, except _her_. Bella was all I wanted to think about. Thinking about anything else felt like a betrayal and I felt like she'd _know_.

Carlisle and Esmé were on suicide watch. Apparently there was a "significant risk" that I would kill myself.

I can't really blame them for thinking that.

After all, I was spending a considerable amount of time figuring out the best way to do it.

After much deliberation, I settled on going to Volterra, like I'd done months before when I thought Bella had died. I was going to try exposing my otherness again and hope for the best. Or in my case, the worst. The setting wouldn't be as good as last time, the San Marcos Festival was two months from now. Too far away. Two months was too long a time to spend without her. No matter, attempting to expose vampires would be enough, even without the huge audience. A quick and quiet way to die. Not too traumatic for my family either. I knew it would still be traumatic, but it would be worse if I begged Carlisle to kill me. Or annoyed a nomad into doing me a favor.

I'd talked about death since my first year as a vampire. I was attracted to the concept, the morbid poetry in it. My family didn't necessarily know that about me, not even Carlisle, but my silence and my apparently brooding face told them all they were willing to understand, which wasn't much. I hated that. I hated that they had typecast me into the role of the "dark and sullen teenager," when I was much more than that. No one knew me. No one except Bella. She was the only one who bothered to look beyond the façade. Bella was the one who would listen to me moan about the world and how unfair everything was and how I was never going to be happy and how I hated my life and what I was and how no one understood. She never acted bored or tried to change the subject. She _listened_. I felt lucky to have someone who listened. Someone who understood every single nuance there was to Edward Cullen. Someone who seemed to love me despite me being a whining, miserable "teenager."

It wasn't like that all the time. We had fun together too. We made each other laugh and enjoyed each other's company. We're forever, that's what she said. (She lied.) And despite the fact that I liked to talk about death and suicide, I think we both believed we'd end up growing old together (if not physically "old"). But Bella will never grow old.

I was sure I wanted to die. There didn't seem to be any other option.

Every day I thought that today would be the day, and every day my family would find some excuse for me not to do it. Every day Esmé nagged me about going back to school, and every day I told her to leave me alone. Since I refused to leave the house she even got Carlisle to make a call and she somehow persuaded him to sign me off school for longer than he wanted to. The school was fine with it as long as I kept up with my work, because it was almost graduation. I didn't care.

Two weeks to the day after Bella's death, I was finally ready. There was something poetic about the timing, I thought. _A fortnight, and no longer._ That was just how long I was willing to live without her. I tried not to think about Carlisle or Esmé or the others, telling myself they'd get over it, in time. They were all mated; they'd understand. It's amazing, the lies you can tell yourself. Even more amazing, the lies you can believe when you're desperate enough.

I wrote a standard sort of note: I said I was sorry, how much I loved them, told them they shouldn't feel like it's their fault. It was painfully inadequate, but it was the best I could manage. And it was better than nothing. Marginally.

For the past few days they'd been taking turns staying home, Carlisle using up his holiday days in a vain attempt to make sure I didn't kill myself. But school teachers and Carlisle's superiors were losing patience, so they'd eventually resigned themselves to leaving me on my own for a few hours a day.

Carlisle was at work and Alice was at school, Rosalie and Esmé were hunting, and Jasper and Emmett went to visit Bella's grave. They asked me to come along, but no. I couldn't do that. I didn't need to look at a reminder that I lost the lost the love of my life; I thought about it every second of every day. And visiting her grave would ruin my plans. I was going to be dead by the time my family got home. I would go to Volterra, or go after Victoria and have her kill me. I changed my decisions every second. I didn't want to solidly decide on going to Volterra and have Alice come after me, once again foiling my attempt. It would be disastrous if she got there before the Volturi finished the job. That would mean being dragged back home, and having to face my family. Having to _live_.

Just the thought of it sickened me.

Thinking about Carlisle hurt the most. He wouldn't understand. For some reason he still thought of me as his golden son, his spotless first companion. He had yet to discover what the rest of the world thought of me. Emo. Loser. Freak...

And he'd think _he_ was inadequate by not being able to keep _me_ alive.

Carlisle would be better off without me. My death would mean one less thing for him to worry about, and I knew he worried about me a lot. Sometimes Carlisle forgets that I can read his mind.

He'd breathe a sigh of relief. He might even find someone to replace the hole I'd leave in the family. Someone better, someone who wasn't broken. Those were the lies I told myself.

The doorbell rang again and again. _Go away! Go away!_ I covered my ears with my hands to try to block out the sound and the thoughts of an annoyed wolf. _Why won't people leave me alone? Why won't everybody just leave me alone? _I felt like ripping my head off then and there.

Then he started banging on the front door with his fist. The banging, interspersed with the doorbell ringing and the onslaught of a black, gnarled mess of thoughts made me reconsider killing myself and think about killing him instead. Then there was a deep voice. A voice I recognized, shouting, "Bloodsucker! I know you're in there so just answer the damn door, okay? I've got better things to do than hang around here all day. Edward Cullen!"

I froze. I didn't want to see him. More than anyone, I didn't want to see him. Thoughts about Jacob Black always led to thoughts about Bella, and I already hurt from thinking about her too much.

I couldn't ignore him. No matter how I felt about the dog, he was still Bella's friend. Bella wouldn't want me to ignore him. Bella would probably want us to forge a friendship based on our mutual grief.

I trudged towards the front door to find him peering through the letter box. As I was opening the door I heard him mutter, "About damn time."

I was slightly lost for words at the sight of him. It was like looking in a mirror. A strange mirror. Of course we looked worlds apart, but there was something in his face that I recognized – something I'd seen whenever I'd looked in the mirror since Bella's death. There was something hopeless about us both. Like we'd disappeared into a place that no one else could reach.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" This was more like the Jacob I knew.

"Sorry, of course, yes." I stepped aside to let him pass. He was carrying a big brown envelope.

He rushed into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I couldn't get past how _different_ he looked, and how _alike_ we looked.

"... Do you want a glass of orange juice?" I hovered in the doorway to the kitchen.

Jacob shook his head.

I perched on Carlisle's chair in the corner. As far away from Jacob as it was possible to get without actually leaving the room. Trying not to show how jittery I was about him eating into my valuable suicide time.

"So... how are you doing?" It was a stupid question. I knew how he was doing. His thoughts all but shouted at me that he had been through hell. But that was what people did – ask each other asinine things they didn't even want to know the answer to.

He gave me a scathing look. The same look I gave Carlisle or Esmé whenever they asked me that very question. "I can't stay long. There's something I have to give you." He waved the envelope. "I don't want you freaking out about it or anything, okay?"

I nodded. Anything to get rid of him so I could get on with my plans.

Jacob hauled himself up from the sofa, which seemed to take considerable effort. He came over and handed the envelope to me. I turned it over to see the front.

Oh God.

He saw the look on my face and said, "You promised not to freak out, remember?" A vague nod was hardly the same as promising, but I said nothing. I had lost the ability to speak. "It's from _her_."

I knew that, of course. The handwriting was almost as familiar to me as my own.

Jacob's words spilled out, answering all the questions swimming around my head. "She left me a note with strict instructions to give this to you today – exactly two weeks after... She said if I didn't do it she'd come back and haunt me... I think that was supposed to be funny. Anyway, I don't know what's in it, so don't even ask. And she didn't want me to tell Dad and Sam about it. Or the police. So you probably shouldn't either. Um, so... I've done what she wanted and that's it." His face crumpled like a scrunched-up piece of paper. "I have to..." He practically ran from the room. I heard the front door slam.

I should maybe have followed him, but all I could think about was the envelope, which I was holding like it was the most precious, fragile thing in the world.

**_EDWARD_** (in big purple letters, underlined three times. Purple was her favorite color).

In much smaller letters underneath was: **_If Jake hasn't delivered this on 23rd January, you have my permission to tell everyone at the Rez that he genuinely believes that one day he and I will get married and have babies. He even made a top secret scrapbook of wedding ideas._**

There was a bigger chance than not that everybody in the Quileute tribe already knew that Jacob was in love with her. And I knew the scrapbook thing wasn't true. Bella was making up a silly story to make me smile.

Then: **_If there's any sign that Jake's opened this envelope and read the contents you have my permission to tell everyone at his school that he once let a girl kiss him for five seconds as payment for copying her math homework._**

And then: **_Open this ten months from now. See you on November._**

I traced the words with my finger. My throat tightened.

_See you on November._

But I won't be seeing her. Not anymore.

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**A/N: I don't think I can emphasize this enough: PLEASE REVIEW! Reviews are the only feedback I get, and I wait day and night — staring at my computer screen and refreshing the page over and over — just to read reviews! (Well, not really, but I'd really appreciate some feedback.)**

**-Helvetica**


	4. Ten Months, Two Weeks, Seven Hours

**FOUR**

**"Ten Months, Two Weeks, Seven Hours"**

* * *

I sat on the floor with the envelope in front of me. Ten months. Ten months of torture since Jacob Black gave me the envelope. I fought against the instinct to ignore it and get on with killing myself.

I had to see what was inside. I opened it up and tipped the contents onto my lap. A dreamcatcher. And there were many smaller white envelopes, twelve in all. Each was marked with a month – the same fat blue pen she'd used on the bigger envelope. The one marked **_November_** also said: **_Open this one first._**

I checked inside the big envelope in case there was anything else, and sure enough there was something lodged in the crease at the bottom. A perfect origami bird made from lined notepaper. Written on it in tiny capital letters was: **_I AM THE TINY ORIGAMI BIRD OF JOY. I AM NOT, I REPEAT NOT, A TOY! I'M HERE TO MAKE YOU SMILE WHEN YOU ARE BLUE. SO CHEER UP, YOU SILLY MOO._** I couldn't help but laugh. Poetry. It was so typically Bella.

I brought the bird up to my nose and sniffed it. A silly thing to do, but I was hoping for a tiny reminder of Bella. She always used this stupidly expensive strawberry shampoo that I adored, and I was suddenly desperate to smell it again. The thought that it had faded from my memory forever made me panic. Unsurprisingly, the origami bird smelled of paper.

I lay the bird the floor and picked up the November envelope. There was more writing on the back: _**Didn't the origami bird tell you to cheer up?**_ I winced when I broke the envelope's seal – ripping her words apart.

Inside were two sheets of creamy paper filled with Bella's familiar scrawl.

I closed my eyes to steady myself and then started to read.


	5. November

**FIVE**

**"November"**

* * *

**_Dear Edward,_**

**_It's not your fault._**

**_I know I should have started this letter with something much more dramatic, but that's the first thing that came to my mind. I know you. I know how you think. And I know that, intelligent as you are, you'd somehow find a way to put the blame on yourself. Don't. The time you've spent without me should be long enough for you to realize that none of this is your fault. Rest easy, Edward. The blame for this one is on me._**

**_You'd better be reading this... because if you're not, there's a chance you might have done something stupid. If that's the case, I'll be so angry. I mean, really really furious. I'm quite sure you wouldn't have done that, but you never know. And it's not like you never talked about it before, Mr. Morbid Cullen._**

**_I'm here to tell you that you can and will be perfectly fine without me._**

**_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I can't begin to explain it. People say sorry all the time for the silliest little things. But you have to know this: I'm sorry in the biggest, hugest way it's possible to be sorry. I hope you can find a way to forgive me one day. I know you'll be angry and I can't blame you for that. If things were the other way around, I would be so furious with you for leaving me behind. So I guess what I'm saying is, I think I understand how you feel right now, but I don't think you'll always feel this way. You're just going to have to trust me on that. _**

**_You know why I'm doing this. There's nothing to be gained from going on about it. What's done is done. At least, it will be by the time you're reading this. Unless I chickened out and couldn't go through with it. In which case, you won't be reading this, because I'll probably have burned it to ashes. But I really don't think I'm going to chicken out. I'm sorry. I'll stop apologizing in a minute, but I'm really sorry._**

**_You'll notice that there are eleven more envelopes — one a month._**

**_Today's the 23rd, so I think it makes sense if you open the next one on 23rd December (just in time for Christmas!). You get the picture. Please, please don't open them early._**

**_The other thing I need you to do is not obsess about what happened. It's done. It was unfortunate and I wish it hadn't happened, but it did. You need to forget about it, ok? I don't want you killing yourself over it or anything. It doesn't matter now. None of it matters. The only thing that matters now is you. You need to look after You. You're going to do good things in this world, I just know it. _**

**_Speak to you next month._**

**_Love,_**

**_Bella_**

**_PS: I think you'd look great in green. Always have. Why don't you give it a try — for me? I don't want this to be emotional blackmail, so I'm just daring you. I dare you to get and wear a forest green jacket, just for a little while._**


	6. Leaves Of Green

**SIX**

**"Leaves Of Green"**

* * *

Every word was a needle pricking at my heart. I read the letter five times, until my vision swam so that it got really difficult to see the words.

I couldn't believe Bella had gone to all this trouble, but at the same time it was such a Bella thing to do. Even at her lowest, her life in tatters, she was thinking of _me_. She didn't have a selfish bone in her body. People think suicide is selfish, and perhaps sometimes it really is. But what happened to Bella was beyond what anyone should have to cope with. I didn't blame her, not really. It just broke my heart that I wasn't enough to keep her here. That she couldn't hold on a couple more months until we could get out of this godforsaken place and go seek our fortunes in Dartmouth. That was the plan. That had always been the plan.

Bella was right. I had been angry with her, but not right away. The first week or so was pure grief — raw and ugly and dark. But then that morphed into something else. The sadness was still there and still huge, but suddenly I felt abandoned. I kept on having this ridiculous thought that Bella was the only person who could possibly comfort me. I needed her to embrace me and hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay without her; how dare she not be here? She'd always been that person for me. That one person I could go to and know that she would make everything better. And now I needed her more than ever and she was _gone_. Forever. I wanted to grab her and shake her and shout, "How could you do this to me?"

I was angry, and confused about the fact that I was angry with someone who was gone. But that stage didn't last long either. That was when I knew I was going to kill myself, and I felt better as soon as I'd made up my mind. It gave me something to focus on and, strangely enough, something to look forward to. But the letters changed everything.

I took my note — my suicide note from last January — from my study table. What had seemed so reasonable for ten months now looked pathetic.

I tore it into small pieces just in case Esmé decided to go rummaging through my bin.

I couldn't damn well do it now, could I? I wanted to. So badly. The thought of going to sleep forever was delicious. I was so very tired.

But I couldn't do it to her. Not now. I couldn't ignore what Bella had done for me. I wouldn't let her down like that; I let her down more than enough when she was alive.

I couldn't get past the timing of it all. As if she knew me so well – every single thing, to the very core of me – that she'd somehow known that two weeks after her death was supposed to be _the day_. She'd known, even though I'd had no idea. The rational part of me knew that this was stupid, just one of the many crazy coincidences that the world is filled with. This one just happened to be so much more bizarre than most.

I was going to have to wait. Somehow I would have to find a way to get through each day without her. I would be patient and read her letters when she wanted me to, even though the waiting would be torture. Maybe the letters would help (and maybe they wouldn't).

Eleven more letters. Eleven more months. Almost a year. I could survive one measly year, for her. But once those eleven months were up... The San Marcos Festival may be over, but it happened every year. I can wait. And even if I couldn't...

But first: I had to get my hands on a green jacket.

I blinked against the annoyingly bright sunshine. I was a hedgehog waking up from hibernation. It was a bit of a shock to see that everything looked the same as it had before. The world had been going about like normal while I'd been boiling in thoughts in my room. I was on my way to the mall to get the green version of my usual grey jacket when a boy stopped me on the street. He was about my apparent age and rather orange.

"Excuse me? Can I just ask, do you shop for your jackets?"

I'd been stopped by them before – the trainee salespeople prowling the streets for new clients. I'd always ignored them – why spend thirty quid when it wasn't necessary? But this boy's jacket was green. _Forest green._

He pointed me in the direction of the store. They were having a half-price sale for students. I had no need for the discount, but I was not in the mood for extravagance. It seemed like fate. It seemed like Bella had arranged for this boy (Brandon, his name even began with a B) to cross my path.

The store's owner barely suppressed a grimace when he looked at my state of dress. I pursed my lips. Without Alice, there was nobody to remind me to dress myself with the Cullen trademark "effortless chic" style.

"Don't you worry, we'll have you looking spick and span in no time, Fernando will work his magic, I can promise you that." I wanted to run screaming from the store. People who talked about themselves in the third person were at the very top of my List, but I gritted my teeth and thought of Bella (and tried to ignore Fernando's deafening thoughts). I looked through a rack of jackets, but in the end I said I wanted something like Brandon's. He smiled knowingly. "Ooh, our Brandon's the best advertising we've got!" He looked over his shoulder furtively and then leaned in close to me. "Shame about the "tan" though, yes?"

I laughed along with him and thought maybe this wouldn't be complete torture after all. It felt strange to laugh again after so long, but the muscles in my face seemed to remember how to do it. And it felt good. I'd only asked for the same jacket as Brandon's, but Fernando winked at me and said, "Don't you worry, dear, I'll pick you a better one with the same color. It is the color you like, yes? Brandon's style does not look good on your frame."

I made a stiff smile. His thoughts were loud and it had been so long since I had been around someone who was so noisy. "Thanks, Fernando."

He tutted. "Don't think about it. Whatever it takes to get rid of this, how you say, _funeral_ grey, and then —" he paused to ruffle my lank locks – "Then I will work my magic!" I kept smiling despite the funeral reference. It was out of the question for me to break down into sobs in a place called _Fernando's_.

Five minutes later I slumped down in front of the mirror, exhausted from Fernando's incessant verbal and mental chatter. My hair was messy and I looked different, but that didn't lessen the shock. I had been staying away from green because it reminded me of what I'd lost. My natural eye color was a boring sort of shade – like seaweed (from what I'd seen in Carlisle's memories). There was nothing remotely seaweed-like about this green.

My eyes looked brown now, somehow. They've always been gold since my taking the animal diet, I suppose, but now they seemed golden brown. Seriously, piercingly golden brown. My whole face looked different somehow – less pale, less like someone who'd only left the house once in the last two weeks.

The shock was even greater when Fernando pulled up the collar. He stepped back to admire his handiwork, a look of supreme smugness on his face. "_Madre de Dios,_ I am good."

He wasn't wrong; he had worked a small miracle. I didn't look anything like me. It was just a jacket, but it made a world of a difference. To be perfectly honest, it scared me a little. To get so used to seeing the same thing in the mirror every day you stop thinking about what you look like, then to see someone else – someone less other, was disconcerting to say the least.

"Ah, Fernando thinks the girls will be knocking at your door before you know it," he said as he patted my shoulder.

"What makes you think they weren't already?"

"Ha! You're funny. I like you. You can come back anytime!"

How rude.

Everyone was back by the time I got home. Esmé was unpacking the vase she bought, Carlisle was reading Strangers On A Train, and Alice was giggling in Jasper's arms. Emmett was stretched out on the sofa, watching TV, his tree trunks for arms wrapped around Rosalie. The scene was so perfectly normal that it stopped me in my tracks. I'd been so wrapped up in my own world that I hadn't given them a second thought. Even when I'd been thinking about them – imagining them finding my body, reading the note – I hadn't really been thinking about _them_. I'd been thinking about _me_.

Emmett didn't even look up when I passed right in front of him; he was having a full, slack-jawed-zombie TV moment. Carlisle had his back to me. His shirt looked especially rumpled. Esmé froze in the middle of what she was saying. She had bubble wrap in one hand and scissors in the other.

"Oh!" Her eyes were wide and the corners or her mouth twitched, as if they couldn't quite make up their mind what to do next.

Carlisle whirled round with the book in his hand. "Oh my!"

I said nothing. Just tugged nervously at the ends of my jacket.

Esmé put down the vase, rushed over and cupped my face in her hands. "Oh, Edward! We were so worried when you weren't here when we got home. Didn't you get my messages?"

She didn't pause to let me answer. "But now I see why! My handsome, handsome son. What brought this on? Feeling a bit brighter, are you?" She smoothed my hair down.

The truth was, Esmé's comments deserved some kind of response, but I couldn't even think of one. I settled for looking away instead.

Carlisle stood and said, "Edward, are you all right?" In his mind, he was thinking of how a huge change in appearance was a sign of suicidal tendencies.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "It's just a jacket, Carlisle."

"Yes, I know, of course." He smiled sheepishly. "It's just that you've never worn anything green since..." His mind went back to 1920, when he told me that I had green eyes as a human. It was something he'd had to tell me, since I didn't remember.

"Right." I frowned. "I'll be upstairs," I muttered, "Cleaning my room." I finished dumbly.

Esmé smiled. "Would you like a hand?"

I shook my head. "No. Thank you. And... I might go back to school tomorrow." I hadn't planned to say those words. I hadn't even thought about going back to school until the words tumbled out.

The whole family shared a look, then Esmé squeezed my arm. There were unshed tears in her eyes, but we both pretended not to notice. "Good boy."

I nodded and left the living room without a backward glance.

The sight of my room was almost as big a shock as my new jacket, but not in a good way. It was messy. I couldn't remember the last time I rearranged my CDs. There were books all over the carpet, four picture albums, three empty picture frames and seven pieces of crumpled paper.

Every time Esmé had come in to try and sort it out I'd shouted at her to leave me alone. And every time, instead of telling me what an unruly little... "teenager" I was, she nodded and left without a word. Thinking about it made me cringe with shame. Things were going to change. I had a year left. I could be a better son for that long, at least.

I'd take one day at a time. There were thirty days to get through before Bella's next letter.


End file.
